Christendom Is Dying

I try to keep a tight lid on my email inbox, but spam still gets through. This was a subject line from an email I received this week: “Is Increasing Membership in 2014 a Goal?” Over at HuffPost Religion, I saw “Why nobody wants to go to church anymore.” Episcopal Cafe led me to “The Church must die so Christianity can live.” And “What needs to die in the Church” from Dirty Sexy Ministry has been reposted on my Facebook wall so many times I lost count.

Anxiety about the state of the church is everywhere you look. Church professionals, lay and ordained, are constantly bombarded by books, articles, blog posts, Facebook updates, and on and on, all about how the church is dying, and why, and what we should do in response: save it! let it die! Often these recommendations come with a handy bulleted list.